| Femmes Fatales | Jan 24 2024 |
Looks like she's down to her last two bullets.
U.S. actress Cheri Caffaro is in full ’70s hair mode in this eye-catching open shirted promo image. Caffaro, you may remember from our previous visits with her, starred in such grindhouse filcks as Savage Sisters, Ginger, Girls Are for Loving, and The Abductors. We've discussed all of those except The Abductors, but we'll get to that one, as well as her 1977 actioner Too Hot To Handle. If you're wondering where she's posing above, with a solider in the background looking circumspectly in the opposite direction, that would be St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, at a monument called Fort Christian in the town of Charlotte Amalie. The shot is from 1973.
U.S. Virgin IslandsSt. ThomasSavage SistersGingerGirls Are for LovingToo Hot To HandleCheri Caffaronudity
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 9 2023 |
Once she learned to stop using her hands she graduated from masturbation to PhDbation.
Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, was very good at quasi-sexual cover illustrations, which is no surprise considering he was one of France's top nude pin-up artists and made a point of flaunting a hedonistic lifestyle. The last front we shared from him featured a girl seeming to fondle her own breasts, and on this one for Henry Cerda's Les tourments de la volupté we have a woman who—we don't know what she's doing, but it probably involves a lot of clenching and unclenching. This cover is a winner. The colors are nice, the pose is extremely suggestive, and the rapturous facial expression is perfect. In addition to all that the title translates to, “the tortures of pleasure,” so there's zero doubt you're dealing with an erotic novel here. Maybe if we read it carefully we too can achieve hands-free ecstasy. Oh, the multi-tasking we could do.
| Femmes Fatales | Jun 23 2023 |
You can stop trying to convince me not to shoot you. I decided on this course of action weeks ago.
Faith Domergue unleashes a steely gaze in this promo photo made for her 1950 film noir Where Danger Lives. Where danger lives is in her eyes, without doubt. While this is an amazing photo, we were nonplussed by the movie. We liked Domergue better in This Island Earth, which is cheesy but fun, and we kind of enjoyed her in the dumb horror flick Cult of the Cobra. She made a lot of movies, so maybe we'll keep trying them until we find one we think is great.
| Vintage Pulp | May 29 2023 |
Venus shows her dark and light sides.
Above are two versions of a piece of Alain Gourdon art first used on Yann R. Patrick’s Vénus des neiges by Éditions de l’Arabesque in 1955, then repurposed by Antwerp based Uitgeverij Eros for Mickey Spencer's Geen tijd voor Kusjes. Everyone's an aka here. Gourdon painted under the moniker Aslan, Patrick was really Jacques-Henri Juillet, and Spencer is an obvious pseudonym, though we don't for whom. Whether dark or light, this is lovely work.
FranceBelgiumAntwerpEditions de l'ArabesqueUitgeverij ErosAslanAlain GourdonMickey SpencerYann R. PatrickJacques-Henri Juilletcover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | May 6 2023 |
The weather is warm but the amenities leave a lot to be desired.
This is a great poster for a forgotten b-movie, proving yet again that even the most minor productions often had unbeatable promo art. Hell's Island premiered today in 1955 and starred John Payne, Mary Murphy, and Francis L. Sullivan. Payne plays a casino bouncer who's promised $5,000 to fly to the fictional Caribbean island of Puerto Rosario to locate a valuable ruby. Unfortunately, his employer has selected him because one of the thieves might be amenable to Payne's persuasion—namely his ex-girlfriend Mary Murphy. Naturally, once he arrives in Puerto Rosario he gets romantically tangled up with her again. She's married, which is a bit disloyal, but her husband is unjustly imprisoned on a nearby island. She still believes in that “for worse” thing enough to ask Payne to rescue her spouse, so he tries to make a deal: the husband for the ruby. But Murphy claims to know nothing about the gem. Is she lying? Have another look at the poster. Does that look like an honest person to you?
To get to the heart of the matter, Hell's Island is one of those mid-budget thrillers meant to feature fast paced, hard boiled dialogue, but which is saddled with unintentional laugh lines thanks to an inferior script. For example, at one point Payne lays in agony on an operating table awaiting surgery, and asks the doctor, “Can I have a cigarette?” The doctor's response? A shrug and, “Why not?” We don't think doctors—who saw a lot of tar-filled lungs up close in surgery—were cavalier about smoking, even back then. Here's another funny line: “About an hour ago he takes his fighting cock and goes away.” There are many more. But what we can say in film's favor is that it improves once it stops trying to be sly. The latter half speeds toward a climax that's just good enough to save the movie from the avoid bin. It's unusual to encounter a film that's part unintentionally comic ineptness, and part competent adventure, but that's what you get here. Proceed accordingly.
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 14 2023 |
Finally some privacy. Now I can really play with these things.
It's time we circled back to Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, whose wonderful work you see here on an amazing cover for Folco Romano's Quand la chair š'éveillé, a title that translates as “when the flesh awoke.” This is a coming-of-age erotic novel from Éditions Le Styx for its Collection Les Fruits Verts, and even in a country as dedicated to l'art de l'amour as France there are limits. It was published in 1958, and banned in 1959, along with numerous other books from Le Styx. How many? At least eleven in two years. Quand la chair š'éveillé is so rare we can't find info on what specifically got it cancelled, but we'll keep looking into it. Meanwhile, see more Aslan by clicking his keywords.
| Mondo Bizarro | Feb 18 2023 |
Mystical powers of mummy are no match for mystical powers of scientists.
It may look like a monkey's head sewn onto a fish's body, but the freakish horror you see in the image above is actually a revered mummy that has been worshipped by some people in Japan since the 1700s. Its normal residence is a box in a temple in Okayama Prefecture, where it ended up after allegedly being found in the Pacific Ocean, off Shikoku Island, between 1736 and 1741. It quickly became known for bestowing mystical health cures and increased longevity, and acquired that reputation, we're sure, without any suggestion from the temple priests. Then it caught the attention of paleontologists at the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts, and—who'd have thought it?—this week they pronounced the mummy a fake.
Leave it to scientists to drain the magic and wonder from irrational belief systems by actually figuring things out. It's almost like they enjoy triggering existential crises. Amazingly, they worked for an entire year on ruining this particular mystery. We know because stories like the one at this link began popping up in early 2022. Scientists, in addition to being killjoys, are slow. The scientific community is fine with that, and we can all only wish the same were true of the communities at our jobs.
But moving at the speed of molasses is a positive of science, not a negative, because science takes its sweet time to get things right. They've done that here, using computerized tomography scans and other tests, and discovered the mummy is exactly what any set of rational eyes would assume it to be—animal parts embellished with papier-mâché.
But moving at the speed of molasses is a positive of science, not a negative, because science takes its sweet time to get things right. They've done that here, using computerized tomography scans and other tests, and discovered the mummy is exactly what any set of rational eyes would assume it to be—animal parts embellished with papier-mâché.But here's what interests us about the story. The object actually is quite old. Scientists carbon dated it back to at least the 1800s, which in our opinion makes it something more than just a fake—it's an antique. And if it isn't one of the oldest cryptids ever put into physical form, we'd be surprised. We bet if the priests in Okayama sold it they'd profit handsomely. Hell, we'd happily buy it and hang it in Pulp HQ to enthrall and enchant our girlfriends. But assuming the temple priests wanted more than a hundred bucks for it, they could auction it. Some internet billionaire might want it. With the yen acquired the priests could perform a few good works—minor miracles themselves. And if disappointed masses in the prefecture need a replacement mummy to worship, we suggest Mother God. She never healed anyone, but at least she didn't live in a box.
Hi, Mother God here. I've departed my physical form, but I still heart all of you.
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 18 2023 |
There's something very fishy going on.
This promo poster just screams winner, don't you think? If it isn't a good movie, it's got to be deliciously terrible. It was made for L'isola degli uomini pesce, known in English as The Island of the Fishmen, a movie that starred Richard Johnson, Barbara Bach, and Claudio Cassinelli. No surprise what it's about, thanks to the title, but nothing is spoiled—the fishmen show up within the first few minutes of the film when a group of convicts in a lifeboat are attacked and the five survivors end up stranded on a swampy island. Since the fishmen hunt there, the attrition rate on this parcel of land is a bitch. Two cons are killed almost immediately upon arrival, and a third barely survives a pit trap. They soon learn humans live there too—paranoid misanthrope Richard Johnson, his companion Barbara Bach, their servant Beryl Cunninghman, and others, all residing in and around a baroque slave plantation house.
Johnson, who is a quack scientist, is trying to train the fishmen for what shall here remain undisclosed purposes. It involves going deep underwater where humans can't survive—but strangely, not so deep that Johnson can't simply drop down in his unpressurized wooden submersible and watch them at work. It's all a crock, even for bad sci-fi. But there are three points of note with the film: first, you can actually see that some budget went into creating the fishmen; second, Johnson speaking in a constipated Dick Dastardly voice is flat hilarious; and third, Barbara Bach is Barbara Bach. Or maybe we should have listed her first. The producers at Dania Film, perhaps realizing Fishmen was a total woofer, rode Bach hard, putting out a bunch of skinful promotional photos and getting her a Fishmen-themed nude shoot in Ciné-Revue. There's always a silver lining in 1970s exploitation cinema—and on Pulp Intl. L'isola degli uomini pesce premiered in Italy today in 1979.
ItalyL'isola degli uomini pesceThe Island of the FishmenCiné-RevueBarbara BachClaudio CassinelliRichard JohnsonJoseph CottenBeryl Cunninghamposter artcinemahorrorsci-fisexploitationnuditymovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 16 2022 |
Dan J. Marlowe gives readers an immersive experience.
Death Deep Down, a thriller from the typewriter of the prolific Dan J. Marlowe, was published in 1965, which is a significant year compared to the books from the ’40s and ’50s we typically read. Books from the mid-sixties and later usually have pacing more similar to today's novels, with faster movement and more action-oriented plot beats. That's true here, and combined with good writing skill, the result is that there isn't a single page Marlowe has written that readers would likely be tempted to gloss over at any point. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The story revolves around a potential fortune-making modification to scuba equipment (or SCUBA if you prefer), and the various forces—business, government, and non-aligned—that all want the rights to it. When you think scuba you think warm waters, and the cover illustration reinforces that notion, but all the aquatic action is in the freezing waters of Long Island Sound, off Oyster Bay. The protagonist Rocky Conrad, a marine on leave from the Vietnam War, is drawn into the plot when his half brother, who developed the gear, is tortured to death. This is juxtaposed against an inheritance drama within a wealthy family, while lurking in background are mysterious assassins of sadistic bent, who flay skin, break bones, and cut out eyes. Who they're working for is one of several mysteries Rocky needs to unravel. He goes about it the way you'd expect of a guy with his name—fists first.
This was Marlowe's tenth novel, and he knew exactly what he was about. There aren't many flaws, though it's at times jarringly pervy, with female characters getting fully or partly naked according to flimsy authorial pretexts. We love nudity, but within the narrative flow. Rocky's asides get a little digressive. Even so, the female characters play important roles both behind the scenes of the caper, and front and center in the action. One such instance involves a vicious fight. We just mentioned how rarely authors write truly knock-down drag-out battles between two women, and presto—here you go. This fight is amazingly hateful, with face scratching, hair ripping, and the combatants rolling off a deck. At the end both require serious medical attention and are likely to be scarred for life. It's a nice punctuation in a book filled with good action.
Turning to the striking cover, this Gold Medal edition features the instantly recognizable work of Robert McGinnis, and his genius shines through even on what is an understated effort by his standards. As often occurs with mid-century paperbacks, the blurb is misleading. Topside she was all honey and sex and woman—underwater she had the conscience of a shark. That's every woman in the book apart from the main love interest Dulcie, which makes it potentially foolish that Rocky treats them all dismissively. The only thing more dangerous than a femme fatale is, like, three of them. We're going to try another Marlowe. Based on how involved we got in Death Deep Down, more is mandatory.
New York CityLong IslandVietnam WarFawcett PublicationsGold Medal BooksDan J. MarloweRobert McGinniscover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 14 2022 |
Worse than Alcatraz. Tougher than Rikers. It's the prison island of scantily clad women.
This tateken style poster was made to promote the Edo era drama Onna-ro hizu, generally known in English as Island of Horrors. The story centers around Nembutsu Island, a rocky outcropping in the Shiranui Sea used as a prison. It's inhabited by about fifteen coincidentally beautiful female captives and six samurai guards. Nobody calls the island by its real name. It's usually referred to as either the Isle of Women, which sounds kind of fun, or Decapitation Island, which does not. The new warden has been assigned there as punishment for not being tough enough in his other stops—a charge he's eager to disprove, with the help of the slap-happy guards and their baroque tortures. Additionally, the women are terrorized by Omasu the Ripper, your typical sadistic prisoner who subjugates the others in order to curry favor with her captors. And worse still, bubonic plague arrives. So, it's not overstating the situation to say that things are pretty bad on Nembutsu Island.
So how do you get the hell off that godforsaken rock? It isn't easy. The women are aware that sometimes there are pardons or paroles, and that knowledge gives them hope. But what if those lucky recipients sent from the island are not freed, but instead secretly sold into sexual slavery? Not saying that's what going on. But, you know, what if? Of course, there's no way the prisoners could ever find that out unless someone who was supposedly freed returned to the island. Omasu has her own departure plans. She tells the warden she knows where a cache of stolen ryō—gold currency—is hidden, trying to leverage it for freedom. She tries to leverage her body for that purpose too. But in the end, release from Nembutsu Island may come down to simple teamwork, and watching the inmates come to that conclusion makes for a well above average women-in-prison drama, worth a watch for the darkly beautiful cinematography and island visuals, as well as good performances from stars Maya Kitajima, Reiko Kasahara, and Yuki Aresa. Onna-ro hizu premiered in Japan today in 1970.
JapanDaiei StudiosOnna-ro hizuIsland of HorrorsMasakazu TamuraMaya KitajimaReiko KasaharaYuki Aresawomen in prisonposter artcinemamovie review
